Leadership

Careers

Modern Configuration Management: Configuration as Code

When configuration is code, DevOps teams work more efficiently, enabling continuous automation across all IT processes.

Managing multiple virtual machines requires proper configuration—loading them with the right software and making sure that software can run. But how can you manage infrastructure when the number of machines you’re responsible for changes on a daily basis?

The only way to turn configuration management into a competitive advantage instead of disruptive churn is to keep environments consistent.

Chef Automate leverages Chef, Habitat, and InSpec to create a pipeline that can cross both internal and external boundaries, standardizing environments and processes locally within the data center and up in the cloud.

As a result, you get a dynamic environment that’s stable no matter how complicated your configurations are. When your application deployment and infrastructure changes move at the same pace, your entire IT organization functions better.

In fact, environmental configurations are foundational to application and business success. A DevOps team that turns configuration into code can leverage the same tools and processes you use on your applications to efficiently and successfully prepare environments to run applications.

Create A Workflow to Release Configurations

Using IT automation tools, a DevOps team can:

build new environments quickly and test changes

deploy changes automatically

manage the environment to detect compliance issues

Code doesn’t get released without going through a workflow that culminates in testing and approval, and turning configuration into code lets you manage workflow the same way for the infrastructure your applications depend on. Configuration change testing becomes parallel to application change testing. Test-driven development identifies defects through the unit test process; test-driven infrastructure lets you test the changes you make to configurations before unleashing them on production. Your DevOps team delivers environments the same way your developers deliver applications.

Support the Release Pipeline With Chef Automation

Once you’ve got environments that are stable and ready to run their applications, getting the applications deployed is the next step. Automation tools let you keep the momentum going and smoothly transition to loading the server with its software.

But automation can still fall apart if separate teams use separate tools and separate processes. Chef Automate enables continuous automation across the development, operations, and information security and compliance teams.

When you treat infrastructure as code, your configuration is

flexible

traceable

human-readable

testable

Ultimately, configuration as code makes your infrastructure manageable. Chef Automate gives you the tools you need to deliver complex environments fast and make smart decisions because there’s no more mystery.